The Glamour - A Halloween Short Story
by Reynholm
Summary: Halloween, 2018: Clara Oswald visits an old friend... Halloween, 2010: The recently regenerated Thirteenth Doctor is brought to Liverpool by a cry for help. There, she finds a family for whom Halloween has gotten frighteningly real. With their daughter possessed by a creature capable of turning people into their deepest fears, the Doctor is in a race against time to save her.
1. Halloween, 2018: After The Summer

**_After the Summer - Halloween, 2018_**

* * *

"Jelly baby?" The old man said genially, shaking a crumpled paper bag under Clara's nose.

Clara, who greatly liked the little sugary treats, took a couple from the bag, popping them into her mouth without looking - orange and green, she thought, the sweetness spreading out across her tongue. The old man grinned broadly, his round blue eyes twinkling wetly. "Make you chubby." He observed in a booming voice.

" _Made_ you chubby." Clara shot back, her eyes dropping to the old timer's not inconsiderable belly, wrapped beneath an off-white shirt, waistcoat and green blazer.

"Rude." The old man said with a shrug, pulling a face. Shaking his head, as though the idea of his own rotundness didn't bother him a jot (which it didn't) he popped a couple into his mouth. Pink and yellow, he knew. _Knew_. He'd eaten enough jelly babies over his long life to know their subtly different tastes off by hearts plural.

"So," he began, stretching out in his armchair, the crumpled bag on the chair's left arm, an exquisitely powerful vodka and orange sitting beside him on a little footstool. Clara had watched him make it; a little orange juice, and a _lot_ of Vodka underneath. A screwdriver fit for a king; a sonic screwdriver, you might say. "So,"...

"So..." Clara nodded, her eyes dropping to the floor. "Yeah. Long time no see, like they say."

"Oh, quite so," the Curator replied gently, "quite. How long is it for you?"

"Ages." Clara said bluntly, as the Curator reached slowly for his cocktail, taking a generous slurp; he didn't even wince. "Ages and ages. I think...fifty years ago. I met the Thirtieth. Remember her?"

"Certainly," the Curator agreed. "She was deaf. One of the most challenging lives I've ever lived."

Clara shrugged. "You adapted well to it, as I remember. You were ever so brave - never let it hold ya back."

The old man grinned again. "Why thank you, my dear. I think your a very brave girl as well! A very pretty one too, probably. Now, for me, we've met a lot more recently that _that_. Right here, in this very museum. Five years ago. Remember?"

"I remember," Clara agreed, sipping her own drink - simple white wine, dry and smooth.

"How do you like my pad?" The Curator asked, in a cringe-inducing attempt to sound "street." He'd heard people speak "street" out in the...well, in the street. Now and again he ventured outside the National Gallery and took to the streets of London. He'd even tried clubbing one night - once was enough.

Clara looked about her - she saw an office, the office of the Curator of the National Gallery, a messy little cavern located somewhere in the bowels of the old building. It was cramped, but deliciously comfortable, it's red wallpaper and little (always lit) fireplace giving it the air of a little Edwardian parlour, equipped with a small oak work-desk, two pink armchairs (occupied by the man himself and Clara) and a big mahogany bookcase filled to the brim with old tomes. There was even a bed, for when the Curator worked late. He would sometimes stay overnight in the little office, and lie awake for hours in bed, a rich book hovering before his face, an dazzlingly hard vodka and orange-juice (read sonic screwdriver) at his bedside. Clara couldn't help but feel pleasantly warm and at peace here. As if to prove the point, the Curator hooked his foot around the leg of the footstool on which had stood his drink, and pulled it across the carpeted floor, depositing it before Clara.

"For drinks and feet." He explained, "but not at the same time."

Clara shrugged and deposited her's on it, leaning back in the armchair. "Thanks. Well, sure. What I see is your office, Doc. Nice place."

"Yes," the Curator replied patiently, "but more than that, you see the dwelling of a man past his prime and proud of it. A man who takes comfort in the fact he isn't as active these days."

"Okay." Clara said awkwardly.

"I mean it though." The Curator pressed, looking at Clara evenly. "I really mean it, you know - I guess I always wondered how I'd feel if...and it was always a big if...I retired for good. Sad to be done? Scared to be going sooner than not? Not a bit of it. I'm at peace. I'm old and out of lives, and I'm not afraid to die - I've had my time."

"Sure," Clara said at once, "and trust me - that's a stance I can relate to, oh so very well. I'm seventy-five now, believe it or not. Old for a human, though I'll always look young. I can't go on forever, nor really do I want to try."

The Curator opened his mouth to reply, and then snapped it shut, frowning. "Can't go on forever...don't want to...why, your misquoting Willy Wonka, my girl! It won't do!"

"Got me," Clara giggled, "bang to rights. He reminds me of you."

The old friends chinked glasses and took to their drinks again; Clara a gentle sip, the Curator a wholesome gulp. His glass was nearly half-empty, and from the wistful look in his watery eyes as he examined the contents, Clara guessed it might be refilled at least once before the night was out.

"I should have come to see you before now." Clara blurted out, looking at her raised feet, unable to meet the Curator's eye. "I've known you've been here for a long time. I swear I meant to."

The Curator waved a hand. "Oh, come now! You've better things to do than bother with an old curmudgeon such as me!"

"Well maybe I have and maybe I haven't," Clara said fairly, "but I still ought to have."

The Curator chuckled. "Well maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't," he retorted, "but I'd hate to deprive you of the wonders out there - that is to say, I'd rather you are out there having fun than bothering with _me_. You know that."

"Speaking of which," Clara said, keen to change the subject having established the old fool wasn't bitter, "been off world at all in the past few generations?"

"Why, no." The Curator replied, "no, no. All given up. Retired."

Clara nodded slowly, smiling. "And tell me...do I look stupid?"

The Curator spent a little too long considering that question, Clara thought. Finally he shrugged. "Well...I don't know how much of 2018 you've visited dear, but the Summer was stifling. Much too warm. I may have taken a _short sabbatical_ 'til the hot weather passed. Nothing more, I assure you."

"Uh huh, sure." Clara said sarcastically. "I definetley believe you. For sure."

"Good!" The Curator exclaimed, raising his glass again, and knocking another slurp back. He exhaled contently. "Splendid stuff - squeezed the juice myself, you know."

"Cool," Clara said, sipping her own drink again. The two of them lapsed into friendly, if vaguely awkward silence - not uncomfortable in each other's company, but both wishing they had a little more to say to the other.

They both struck the answer at the same time; "Hey!" They said simultaneously, before cutting off abruptly to let the other speak. Clara giggled. "No, you go first."

The Curator shrugged. "Well...Halloween isn't it? Game for a scary story?"

Clara grinned, her big frying-pan face as wide as a moon. "Go for it! A proper one though; one of the Doctor's."

"What else?" The Curator chuckled. "But you go first! What's the scariest thing you've ever done?"

"Getting killed." Clara said at once.

"Oh," The Curator said quietly, "oh yes. Quite so. Well I've got plenty of scary stories - the good Doctor had a lot of adventures, and not all of them were fun."

"Sure," Clara laughed, "pick one at random. See if you scare me. Bet you won't." She winked.

"I beg to differ," The Curator exclaimed, his eyes widening, "you know...there was _one_ thing...it comes to mind now because it happened on a Halloween night as well...but perhaps it's a little grim?"

"I'll be the judge there, Doc," Clara insisted, putting her feet down and sitting up straight in her chair enthusiastically, ready to listen, "pray tell!"

The Curator shrugged, "so be it."

Putting on his deepest, grandest voice, he began, "the story you are about to be told...took place, for me, in the days of old...my Thirteenth life had but recently begun..."


	2. Halloween, 2010: Before The Winter

_"Aw, come on Doc!" Graham O'Brien moaned, clutching his stomach with his free right hand, holding for dear life onto the Tardis' console with his left. "I've only just 'ad me lunch, know what I mean? I'm gonna chunder."_

 _"Just hold on!" The Thirteenth Doctor snapped, her short blonde hair askew, as she too held tightly onto the console. She didn't feel so good herself - she and Graham had indeed been enjoying a lunch of fried-egg sandwiches, chatting inanely as they ate, failing to notice that the Tardis was heading straight into a time storm._

 _Until they'd flown right into it; they definetley noticed it then._

 _"We're nearly out!" The Doctor whined, "if your gonna be sick, do it outside the door! I haven't had this console room five minutes!"_

 _It was just the two of them; Yaz and Ryan had gone to a rock concert on the planet Magmas. The Doctor was a grade-a fidget, and didn't have the attention span to spend more than a couple of hours anywhere. Graham, who favoured 60's music had similarly opted against going - they'd dropped off the young-uns, and had been on their way to pick them up when they'd crashed into the time storm._

 _The orange console room's lights dipped in and out as the ship lurched again, the Doctor losing her grip on the console and plunging to the floor. She was, Graham was horrified to see, enjoying this. She leapt to her feet and slammed on the accelerator - or what Graham assumed was an accelerator._ Potaytoh potahto _, after all._ Tomayto Tomahto _. This contraption of her's wasn't so very different from the buses he spent upwards of thirty years driving. There was a handbrake, an accelerator and...well all right, the similarities ended there._

 _"Wait for it..." The Doctor said hopefully, her face screwed up in concentration..."busting out...now!"_

 _And she did - with a final lurch and flicker of the lights, accompanied by a wheezing groan of protest from deep within the machine, the pair of them were thrown to the blue floor of the console room._

 _"Bloomin' 'eck!" Graham whimpered, staggering slowly to his feet, still clutching his stomach. "I did not like that."_

 _"Ah, come on!" The Doctor said bracingly, "no bones broke! We're fi...ooh!"_

 _Cutting herself off mid-sentence, she reached into the pocket of her sky-blue coat. After fumbling around for a while (Graham was convinced those pockets had a lot in common with the Tardis) she extracted a little black pamphlet._

 _Graham looked at her. "What?"_

 _"Mail!" The Doctor exclaimed, opening the black pamphlet. She looked at it, and frowned._

 _"Hmm...interesting. I mean, worrying...I mean very worrying. Lookit here."_

 _She showed Graham - on the off-white paper in the pamphlet was one word, written in large capital letters; help! Beneath that, strange squiggles that Graham couldn't make out._

 _"What's them?" He asked._

 _"Space time co-ordinates," The Doctor replied, slamming the engines into gear at once. Graham realised what she was going and shook his head._

 _"Oi, Doc! We've gotta pick up that grandson of mine, remember? Yaz too."_

 _"We will, we will. It's a time machine Graham. There's no urgency."_

* * *

"So where did you go?" Clara asked.

The Curator smiled wanly. "Liverpool."

* * *

 ** _Before The Winter: Halloween 2010_**

* * *

 _"This way!" The Doctor said brightly, skipping down the dimly-lit suburb. It was well past midnight - too late for trick-or-treaters, who would be long since tucked up in bed, and too early for party-goers, who wouldn't even be thinking about bed until dawn. Graham winced against the cold and pulled his suede blue jacket around him tightly. This was a well-to-do part of Liverpool, he instantly saw. Actually rather nice. The homes were large, the cars smart. The road was reasonably wide, and a blue Arriva bus trundled past at a junction at the far end of the street. He liked those buses; he'd driven them a little throughout his career, and had always found them rather more comfortable than others._

 _"So we're in 2010?" Graham asked. "Coldest winter for flamin' years as I remember."_

 _"That's the one." The Doctor replied faintly, not slowing down to allow the older man to catch up._

 _"So...I'm like...out 'ere somewhere?"_

 _The Doctor rounded on him, frowning. "how's that?"_

 _"I mean if...if we now took a coach down London, where I was livin' in 2010...we'd meet me?"_

 _The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah. Mustn't do that though. Timelines an' all that."_

 _"An' if we went to Sheffield..." Graham continued slowly, "Grace would..."_

 _The Doctor nodded sympathetically and took him by the shoulder. "We can't, Graham. I'm sorry. I wish we could."_

 _Graham took a deep breath. "So do I, Doc." He said quietly; he was a very quiet man. "So do I. But awright. Let's focus on the job in 'and."_

 _The Doctor grinned. "Good man." She took her hand from his shoulder and hurried on down the street, Graham stomping along behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around his midsection to keep warm. The Tardis was parked on the corner down at the other end of the street, in public view, but blending in better than it had any right to do._

 _"So your sure that message came from round 'ere?" Graham said incredulously. "Looks quiet enough to me, Doc."_

 _"Hey, Sheffield looked quiet enough to me!" The Doctor pointed out. "Look how that turned out! Now come on - stop dawdling."_

 _Suddenly, she stopped. So suddenly that Graham almost walked right into her. She rounded on a house directly to their left; a house. Any house. One house out of a row of about fifty houses, in a city of over ten thousand houses._

 _And from within, a distress call powerful enough to reach the Tardis..._

 _Without a moment's hesitation, the Doctor strolled up the front path and knocked the brass knocker on the door, the metal hammering the dark green wood loudly._

 _"Oi, keep it down!" Graham exclaimed, "you'll wake up 'alf the street!"_

 _But before the Doctor could reply, there came a scraping from within the house, and the door swung open. A fussy little man stood before them, the well-lit front hall blinding in Graham and the Doctor's eyes, as they struggled to adjust to the brightness._

 _The man was short - shorter even than the Doctor. He was about forty, with smooth brown skin and black-grey thick hair. He was fully dressed in a smart black suit and velvet-red tie. His leather shoes were like two little mirrors, they were that shiny. He had a neat little moustache and goatee._

 _He spoke in an accent which the Doctor and Graham recognized as Indian - the Doctor had been there enough times to know it, and Graham frequented his local takeaways often enough to recognize it a mile off._

 _But he didn't say "Hello". Nor, as would have been quite understandable, "don't you realize what the time is? What do you want?"_

 _No, instead he simply said; "You the UNIT people?"_

 _Graham looked confused, but the Doctor shook her head at once. "Yeah, that's us!" She exclaimed, not even strictly lying. She showed the man her psychic paper. "Jane Smith, PhD, and Captain Graham O...er...O-Saugh-"_

 _"O-Brien!" Graham jumped in right on cue, "Graham O'Brien!"_

 _"Good, good!" The fussy little man said, shaking their hands briefly, "Please! You must come now. She's gotten worse."_

 _The Doctor and Graham glanced at one another, before walking slowly into the large, posh home._

* * *

"He doesn't sound like the most willing adventurer," Clara laughed, "this Graham."

The Curator chuckled dryly, "I thought so too," he said, "but when push came to shove, he chose to stay with the Doctor. He could have left, and didn't."

Clara shrugged. "Fair enough...wish I'd met Thirteen. See what became of old Twelvey."

The Curator nodded, "Oh yes. She was the Doctor's first female form. Very pretty. Very lovely. But anyway, where was I...so we went in and"

* * *

 _The little man hurried the pair of them upstairs, giving Graham little time to look at the home properly - but it was, beyond any doubt lovely - the carpet was beige, like the walls. To the left, a large kitchen-diner, and a living room to the right, with an office space next to it. The stairs were directly opposite the door, and went up and then right. The little Indian man was already at the top._

 _"Come, come! My wife is with her. We've sent the other children to live with their grandma."_

 _"So what's your name?" The Doctor asked, walking upstairs without taking her shoes off - she had an idea that during normal times, this tidy, neat little man would certainly enforce a no-shoes policy around the home. But she also had an idea, no a certainty, that these were far from normal times._

 _The man stopped and frowned. "But surely your superiors told you that? Before sending you here?"_

 _"Oh, I'm rubbish me!" The Doctor chirped. "Always forgetting names!"_

 _"She is, ya know mate," Graham said, trying to sound casual, "memory like a sieve."_

 _The man shrugged. "It's Devendra. Devendra Sharma. My wife is Aashi."_

 _"Knew it was summin' like that!" The Doctor lied shamelessly._

 _The man hurried them along the upstairs landing, the decor much the same as hallway downstairs. Pictures adorned the walls - the family at the beach. The family cat. School photos of four girls, the eldest of which looked fifteen or thereabouts, the youngest seven._

 _"She's in here," Devendra whispered, stopping outside a white bedroom door, the first in a row of three. "This is Priti's room."_

 _"Priti?" Graham asked without thinking._

 _"My daugher, Priti. Fifteen." But now Devendra was irreversibly suspicious. When he'd called UNIT earlier that evening, entirely out of options or ideas, he'd given his name, his daughter's name, and a brief (yet heart-wrenching) description of what was happening to her. These two strange people, however, had known none of that. Now he thought about...the dozy old cockney guy looked nothing like a military Captain. And as for the woman! She didn't exactly dress like a professional..._

 _All of these suspicious were on the cusp of being aired - leading, no doubt, to a showdown. But before he could speak, a voice sounded from behind the closed door of Priti Sharma's bedroom. A deep, gravelly male voice, which far from sounding Indian or even Scouse, was richly cockney - even more so than Graham._

"Get them people out of the 'ouse! Ya hear me, you old crone? I'll break yer' daughter's pretty neck, you see if I don't!"

 _Without hesitating, the Doctor shoved her way past Devendra and ran through the door into the room. Graham followed suit. And then wished he hadn't._

 _The smell in the room was death - exactly death. The rich-ripe stench of so many animals, left rotting in a concrete tomb for years. He gagged, the earlier nausea from being thrown about the Tardis returning a hundredfold. His fried-egg sandwich churned in his stomach, and he clutched a hand to his mouth. Don't burp, Graham old son, he thought to himself. Don't even burp. It'll all come up. It was cold, too. The house was heated, but this room might as well have been outside. Odd, because Graham could see that the radiator in here was on full blast._

 _The Doctor wrinkled her nose against the stench, but otherwise didn't react. The room was large, with a sliding-door wardrobe taking up a whole wall. A television with a busted screen rested on a desk opposite the double-bed, in which lay the teenage girl from the photos outside. She was Priti. Pretty too, if you'll pardon the pun. She had a lovely face. It was narrow, her head shaped somewhat like a coffee bean. Her long black hair lay either side of it on the pillow. But_ oh _, she was_ thin _! Painfully thin. Pale, too - her skin, which ought to have been the delicate brown of her parents' was a clammy grey. Her mother sat to her side; the splitting image of her daughter, but older. About forty, like her husband. She was crying._

 _The Doctor looked around the stinking room. "But who spoke?" She whispered._

 _The girl on the bed raised a skeletal, spider-like hand. "_ Me! _" She barked, in the gruff, grating male voice which they'd heard just now._ "Get stuffed, the pair 'o ya! I mean it! I'll snap 'er neck, and I'll paint yer faces with 'er blood! Sod off!"

 _Graham stared at the girl in horror. The Doctor just smiled. "Hello there, Priti." She said gently. "Mind if I sit down?" Without waiting to be asked, she perched on the edge of the double bed. The duvet was blue, like her coat. "Hello Mrs. Sharma."_

 _Devendra walked in. "These are...I think...the UNIT people." He said to his wife._

 _"Can you help her?" Aashi said, taking the Doctor's hand, "look at her!"_

 _The Doctor nodded. "So what seems to be the problem, Priti? Can I help? I'm a doctor."_

 _The girl on the bed smiled an icy smile that dripped hatred._ "Don't call me Priti." _she said, her voice that of a smoking cockney man in his sixties._

 _"I thought that was your name." The Doctor observed._

"Priti? Oh, this thing, ya mean? Me piggyback?" _The skeletal girl wiggled her fingers and her toes, under the duvet._

 _"Who are you then?" Graham whispered._

 _The thing on the bed burst into a rough, booming laugh._ "Got us a fella Londoner righ' here! But who am I? Me? I'm the gingerbread man! I'm the bear! I'm the bear! With the brown, fuzzy hair! The Grand High Witch! Lupin The Werewolf! The Manager o' the Queen Vic! Can't stop me! I'm the crooked man!"

 _Graham walked to the Doctor's side, and whispered into her ear, "she's possessed," he whispered._

" _Maybe_." _The Doctor replied quietly, as the Sharma's clutched each other, whimpering. Her eyes travelled to the leg of the bed, from which a rope trailed up, and beneath the covers. The girl was bound, tied to the bed. For her own safety._

 _"I was brought here," the Doctor began, "by a message on my psychic paper." Behind her, the Sharma's senior_ _glanced at each other. "Someone was crying out for help."_

 _The creature shifted, and grinned at the Doctor, displaying several yellow teeth._ "Oh?"

 _"Can you throw any light on that?"_

"Yeah." _Priti grunted in the man's voice._

 _The Doctor nodded. "But you won't tell me, will you?"_

 _The creature cackled a dry cackle. The sound came, the Doctor realised for the first time, not exactly from Priti's mouth, although it was moving with every word. The voice itself was coming from somewhere behind her._ "Nah."

 _"Thought as much." The Doctor said, rising from the bed and taking a cursory glance behind the girl in the bed. She was sitting propped up on the pillows. The bed was three to four inches from the wall, and there was nothing at all behind it. She got to her knees and peered underneath the bed. Again, nothing._

"Get you gone, darlin'!" _The thing on the bed grunted again, the mouth moving, but the noise coming from somewhere else,_ "Get you gone, you stupid blonde tart! Take that pillock with 'ya an' all! I'll snap 'er in 'alf! Then I'll come for ya! Look at yer head? I'll give ya' a bleed in the brain! Graham - 'ow'd you like that darned old cancer back? Reckon I couldn't do it? Huh?"

 _Graham went white. "How d'you..."_

 _"Forget it!" The Doctor snapped firmly, grabbing Graham's arm. She rounded on Mr. and Mrs. Sharma, who stood clutching each other, weeping._

 _"Tell me everything." The Doctor demanded, sweeping from the room, Graham in her wake. "And make sure she can't go anywhere." She called back. Aashi burst into fits of tears and hurried along after the guests. Devendra stayed and double checked the rope which bound his daughter, and the thing that was with her._

"Thanks, pa." _It said, growling gently at him like an animal. Devendra looked into his daughter's large brown eyes and saw inside them his daughter's pleading expression, begging him for help and unable to ask for it. Unable to do anything._

* * *

 **Note: Hope someone, somewhere enjoys this. Will be four chapters in length - I'll finish the other two over the weekend, will be busy with uni work until then. Thanks.**


	3. Fear

_"You aren't from UNIT." Devendra said at once, as they sat down in the living room._

 _"And that isn't your daughter." The Doctor replied simply, stretching out on the lucid pink sofa. It was a charming little room, filled with pictures of the family Sharma, including Priti. Graham noted the bright sparkle in her eyes, something which was entirely absent in the girl he'd seen upstairs._

 _"Thass righ'," Graham said, nodding vigorously, "she's possessed, in't she Doc?"_

 _The Doctor shrugged. She rounded on Devendra and Aashi. "How did she get like this?"_

 _"No. More to the point, who are you?" Devendra demanded, rising from his seat and standing over the Doctor and Graham. "We've let you into our home! I demand you explain yourselves."_

 _"We're help." The Doctor said. "I'm not from UNIT nah, but I've worked with them. I'm the best they could have sent. Trust me! I can help."_

 _"She can, ya know." Graham piped up._

 _Devendra switched his gaze from the Doctor to Graham. "So what do you do?" He asked him._

 _"Me? Well I'm um...dunno to be honest with ya, mate. Just 'elpin' out the Doc 'ere."_

 _"I see," Devendra said slowly. He rubbed his forehead and sat down heavily next to his wife on the sofa. For a while, nobody spoke. The house was eerie quiet - the faint gurgling of pipes was audible, but absent entirely was the sound of the creature upstairs. Graham didn't like that. He couldn't help but feel it was listening, and would have preferred it if it had been shouting and screaming like it had when they'd been in it's lair..._

 _"Last week." Aashi blurted out suddenly._

 _"Come again?" The Doctor replied._

 _"You asked how she got like this...we don't know. But it happened last week."_

 _Mrs. Sharma's accent was thick - thicker than her husbands, who spoke Indian with the vaguest twang of something more domestic. Graham had an idea that Devendra had lived here all his life, which Aashi may not have. Just like her husband though, her English itself was impeccable. He listened as she continued._

 _"You must know the stories, right? Typical horror storyline - strange things start to happen...furniture moves itself... bumps and voices in the night... well there was nothing. Nothing! We woke one morning and she was...she..."_

 _"She was like that?" The Doctor finished gently._

 _Aashi swallowed, biting back tears. "Yes she was. Yes."_

 _"Well I'm not surprised." The Doctor said, leaping to her feet. "Now listen up - the lot of ya. This isn't a haunting. Get that idea out of your head right now. There's no ghost in this house. There's no poltergeist-"_

 _"-Thass what this reminds me of!" Graham interrupted suddenly._

 _"What?"_

 _"The Enfield Poltergeist! Graham exclaimed. "'appened in Enfield, back in the seventies. It's broadly the same! Girls speakin' in man's voices." He looked around the nonplussed room. "Trying to be helpful here!"_

 _"Good for you," the Doctor said sarcastically, "no. Like I literally just said; there is no poltergeist. The thing controlling your daughter is real - it's flesh and blood like all of us."_

 _The Sharma's looked at each other, their brown eyes wide with horror. Graham stared at the Doctor who gazed around the room, secretly enjoying the dramatic effect she'd instilled._

 _"Then what is it?" Graham demanded._

 _The Doctor took a deep sigh and shrugged. "It's a glamour. I thought it was when I first walked into the room. By't time I left, I was certain of it."_

* * *

"Come on then," Clara said enthusiastically, "what's a glamour?"

The Curator smiled. "Well what do you think a glamour is? I mean - when you hear the word "glamour", what do you think of?"

"Myself!" Clara replied at once, preening. "What else?"

"Well, quite," the Curator chuckled, "but speaking generally?"

"Ooh, I dunno how you'd define it...just about looking good right? Looking glamorous?"

"Ah." The Curator said gently. "Well actually, the name is G _hlam-Haar._ That's the Fourth Deep Nordic's name for them, because it's from their home planet that they are thought to originate. But it translates as "glamour."

"Ah." Clara repeated. "But what are they?"

The Curator sighed deeply. "They love Halloween, Glamours do."

"Yes?"

"Clara, my dear...when you travelled with the Doctor, did you ever so happen to meet any shape-shifters?"

Clara thought, before breaking into a smile. "Zygons of course!"

"Quite. I suppose you'd categorize a glamour as a shape changer. Except..."

"Except?" Clara insisted.

"Most shape changers change their own form. Some shape changers, those with psychic ability, can even change into something their victim fears."

"Yeah..."

"But Glamours are altogether more nasty - they don't change their own form into something their darkest fears. They change the _victim_ into his or her own darkest fears."

Clara stared at him. "But that's horrible!"

"Yes, it is rather." The Curator said evenly. "And it's entirely irreversible, of course. A physical mutation of the mind, and of the flesh. It takes the mind first, but..."

* * *

 _"Come on, now..." The Doctor said gently, as she and Graham walked slowly back into the bedroom of death._

"Aye aye!" _The man's voice boomed from the teenage girl sat up in the bed._ "Welcome back! Back for your top-up o' the c-word, Graham?"

 _The abomination on the bed threw back it's bed and exploded into dalek's laughter, gravelly and hoarse._

 _"Ignore it," the Doctor said at once, "it's powerless over us. For now. All it can do is scare us."_

 _The creature's laughter subsided to gentle growling, and the girl's head dropped to her chest. Her parents were waiting downstairs; naturally they'd protested. But the Doctor had an eerie persuasive way about her, and when she really wanted to use it, often people were powerless to disagree with anything she said._

 _"Like we rehearsed." She told Graham. He nodded dryly._

 _The girl and her passenger looked up and spoke to Graham. "_ Sir _!" It grunted in it's best cockney accent._ "You don't look convinced by 'er little plan?"

 _"She's tied up." The Doctor returned fire with._

 _Again, crooked, gravelly laughter._ "They stand me in a corner, with my hands and feet still bound, while a carpenter is called for, and an explanation found. The rain has warped the timbers, I hear the hangman say! It's funny, but it worked well! I tried it yesterday!"

 _"Hush now." The Doctor commanded. She approach the bed from the left side, Graham from the right. They stood over the monster, flanking it._

 _"Now!" The Doctor cried. But the glamour was ready for them. Quick as lightening, it's fist shot towards Graham, striking him square on the nose. Graham screamed and staggered back into the wall as his nose exploded crimson blood. The girl on the bed had incredible strength! Her hand flashed to her other side, and grabbed the Doctor's throat. It squeezed. The Doctor choked and tried to pry the fingers from her throat, but they were fastened on as if iron clamps._

 _Good. With her left arm still under the bed sheets, and her right arm busy strangling, the girl on the bed didn't have any time to bat away the canister of spray the Doctor squirted in her face._

 _"All right, G?" The Doctor asked, as the girl on the bed slowly drifted off to sleep, and Graham took his hands away from his nose. It had poured blood - it covered his upper lip, and parts of his cheeks. It was on his hands._

 _"Ouch..." he said weakly. The Doctor smiled sympathetically._

 _"Sorry, mate...didn't know she'd pack_ quite _such a punch. Go get cleaned up. You don't need to see this."_

 _"Ya sure?" Graham asked, spitting blood._

 _"Yeah, she's not dangerous for now."_

 _"Well, awright." Graham said, staggering from the room. The Doctor took a deep breath; it came out as steam in the freezing room. She looked down at the sleeping girl; the drug was harmless. She'd wake up soon enough, with little to no side-effects. The Doctor placed a hand gently on her arm. It was cold too. Like ice. Gently, she rolled the girl over onto her stomach - she wore full pink pajamas._

 _The smell - of sewage, rotten flesh and off-syrup - got worse all at once, when she rolled the girl over. Course - the source of the smell was on her back. She didn't want to undress the girl - she couldn't afford to get any colder than she already was. Instead, she lifted the top gently up towards her neck, holding her breath. She knew what she was going to see, but still she was scared. She saw it._

 _And then, at the worst time, did Graham choose to come back in, a wad of tissue stuffed up each nostril. He looked._

 _"Cripes!" He screamed, going pale._

 _The Doctor nodded grimly. "I concur."_

 _Upon the smooth, coffee-coloured skin of Priti Sharma's back was something that resembled nothing so much as a splat of gunge. It was beige, mottled and pulsating, covering most of the unfortunate girl's back. Around it's edges were little pincers, dug into it's hosts' flesh. And oh, the_ stench _! Even with his nose plugged, Graham was overwhelmed by it. In the middle of the splat was a mouth, a gaping lipless hole, with sharp little brown teeth and a tongue. There were no eyes. There was no nose. It made a low growling noise._

 _"This is your poltergeist, Graham." The Doctor exclaimed. "That would have been the size of a golf ball when it landed on her - they travel through space, see. Looking for hosts. Any host. Now look at it."_

 _"'Ow do we get it off?" Graham gagged._

 _The Doctor shrugged. "It might be too late. Look closer."_

 _Reluctantly, Graham did. He watched the Doctor's finger as it traced the parasite's rancid perimeter. Priti's skin immediately surrounding the Glamour had taken on a rough, orange hue, that Graham had assumed was just irritation, infection from the alien parasite's little claws. But then he looked closer. It didn't look like skin at all. He saw now that it had gone hard - hard as in solid. He thought he recognized the rough, orange-brown crusty texture, but..._

 _"Remember what it called itself?" The Doctor whispered._

 _"Um..." Graham began._

 _"The gingerbread man. The Grand High Witch. Lupin the Werewolf...it was talking about fears, Graham. Her fears. Fears from her childhood, no doubt."_

 _Graham stared in disbelief and revulsion. "You don't mean..."_

 _"I'm surprised." The Doctor said. "I thought it would have picked a nastier fear for the final form. But obviously it's the strongest Priti has."_

 _Graham looked again at the skin around Priti's parasite. "You don't mean..." he repeated coldly._

 _"But I do." The Doctor said. "It turns it's host into whatever he or she fears. It said it was the gingerbread man - and soon enough, she will be."_

 _Graham opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, he heard a voice in his head - they both did. It wasn't a deep male voice, it was a rasp, a rasp they knew for sure wasn't real, but in their heads, the rasping, furious voice of the parasite before them._

"They stand me in the corner with my hands and feet still tied. A warder holds onto the noose - the trapdoor opens wide. Is it magic or coincidence which keeps me on the brink? It seems to work without me, will it kill me now, I think?"

 _"What do we do?" Graham whimpered, "'ow do we 'elp her, Doc?"_

 _"We get her to the Tardis. Immediately."_

"He drew the bolt, and I felt the jolt the third and final time!"

* * *

 **Note: Sorry for the delay - final chapter tomorrow. Any reviews welcome!**

 **Credit:** _ **Wake Up John (Hanging Song)**_ **by Fairport Convention based on the historical case of John Lee, a.k.a "the man they couldn't hang."**


	4. Courage

**_The Glamour only knew two things to begin with; itself. And the whale._**

 ** _The whale was a stupid, nasty old thing! Sure, it may have sent all of it's cousins shooting off into space through it's blowhole, looking for meat to fertilize, and fears off which to make a true form, but it was still a stupid, nasty old thing!_**

 ** _Itself had always been the runt of the litter - long after it's cousins were sent flying off among the stars, it stayed behind with the whale. All it did was sleep! Once - it might have been ten thousand years ago, it might have been twenty - it had tried to speak to the whale, to ask whether soon_** _ **it too**_ ** _might be sent off to fly freely, looking for it's perfect host from which to build a form. The whale only replied that it was too tired and needed to rest. Stupid, lazy, mean old thing!_**

 ** _It had shed a tear when, at last, the old thing had slipped away as it slept. It hadn't cried for the loss of the whale. It cried because it thought that maybe it wouldn't ever fly now, with the whale dead and gone._**

 ** _But it did - as the colossal carcass decayed, so it released the foulest of chemicals. The natural firestorms of that sea did strike one night, and the explosion, finally, sent itself away. Freedom at last! Freedom to search to find, and find to change! Freedom to live!_**

* * *

 _The Doctor, Graham and Devendra staggered through the Tardis doors, Graham and Devendra carrying Priti between them._

 _"Yes, it's bigger on the inside," the Doctor said preemptively as she heard a gasp of disbelief from behind her. "Just lie her down beside me."_

 _They laid her at the Doctor's feet, her head resting against the side of the console. Devendra staggered backwards into one of the glowing orange columns that flanked the console, rising up and over it like pincers._

 _Graham nodded sympathetically. "Jus' give yerself a moment, mate. Scrambles ya' head, dunnit?"_

 _"Little bit." Devendra whispered. Aashi hadn't come - she'd gone to be with the other kids of the family, at Devendra's insistence. All being well, they could come home tomorrow, to find their sister well again._

 _"I can hold her in a state of grace here." The Doctor explained. "Stop it changing her any further...before I operate."_

 _"But...gingerbread?" Graham exclaimed incredulously, "that's the best it can do?"_

 _"Bit odd, yeah." The Doctor agreed. She rounded on Devendra. "Is she, or was she ever, afraid of gingerbread men?"_

 _"I...don't know." Devendra said slowly, and the Doctor and Graham knew he was lying._

 _"Oh, you do." The Doctor replied at once. "This could be important!"_

 _Devendra shook his head. "You'll think bad of us..."_

 _"We'll think worse o' ya if ya don't tell us!" Graham snapped._

 _Devendra took a rattling breath, and nodded. "All right. That song - run, run, run, fast as you can..."_

 _"You can't catch me! I'm the gingerbread man!" The Doctor finished._

 _"Right." Devendra said. "Well if you must know, her uncle used to sing that to her. All the time. My older brother. He was good to her, so I thought - as a baby, as a toddler. Always bring sweets when he visited. Expensive sweets, you know - toys too. Back then, my company was in it's starting stages. I run a law firm. Today, I have staff, but then I was doing much of it myself. Working all hours, seven days a week. Aashi was pregnant with Priti's sisters. So we could use all the help we were offered."_

 _Devendra crouched down and sat cross-legged on the floor by his daughter. He began stroking her hair softly. The creature on her back remained silent. "He'd take her to the park. To the cinema. All sorts. He had no children, no wife of his own. His relationships with women were always short lived. He doted on his nieces and nephews. Priti most of all."_

 _Graham and the Doctor nodded, their throats tight. They knew what he was going to say next._

 _"In time, we noticed...no, Aashi noticed. Not me. She noticed that... for all these treats, Priti was never...never happy to see her uncle. She never smiled when he turned up, said thank you only listlessly, as though from a script. Aashi told me about this...and I_ knew _. I_ knew _. Deep down. I just...I couldn't face it. He was my_ brother _!"_

 _"But?" The Doctor whispered._

 _"Well, eventually Priti told us, and I was forced to listen at last. Said she didn't like it when...when he..."_

 _"It's awright, mate." Graham said, putting his hand on the man's shoulder. "We get the point."_

 _"Yes," Devendra said planting a kiss on his daughter's cold, clammy forehead. "Well, he went to prison, of course."_

 _"He still there?" The Doctor asked._

 _"He's dead." Devendra spat, without a shred of sadness in his voice. "Was hanged in his cell, with his bedsheets."_

 _"Suicide?" Graham said._

 _"No. Homicide. They don't like people like him in prisons. Not at all. But whomever did it was never caught. I should like to meet the man who did it, I often think. To shake him by the hand."_

 _Graham scoffed. "It all fits, dunnit? The gingerbread man...the 'anging song. It's not random at all. It's feeding off her fear."_

 _"Fear of her long-dead uncle. Fear of the harmless children's song he sung to her, the terror she's attributed to hearing it after all this time...and I'd be willing to bet, if we allowed the mutation to take it's full course, the gingerbread creature she's become would bear the face of her uncle."_

 _The man on the floor burst into tears, and clutched his daughter. "I'm sorry..." he whispered into her unhearing ear. "I'm so, so sorry..."_

"Yeah? Well sorry in't good enough, is it ya daft old prat!"

 _Everyone looked down in horror. Priti's eyes were open. Wide open. But they didn't look like eyes. They were white and black, a crude representation of eyes. The iris and pupils were gone, leaving only a round black lense against a white background._

 _Like the eyes you'd find on a gingerbread man._

 _Devendra screamed as she sunk her teeth into his neck._

* * *

 ** _It's travels took it soon enough to a little blue planet. It was happy with it's choice of host. A girl, no longer a child, and not yet a woman! And oh, what beautiful fears! What lucid fears! A catalogue of terror from which it could select her new form, the form they would share together, two creatures moulded into one new one._**

 _ **Many of her childhood fears were dimmed now, and pity. If it had found her a few years previously (if that, mean stupid old whale had bothered to send it away!) it would have found her in the prime of her childhood, where she'd still believe that witches were real, that every full moon werewolves roamed the streets, that the characters from soaps could come alive and eat her. Oh, she was still scared of all of that! Still such a child at heart, which is of course why it chose**_ **her** _**window to fly through in the dead of night. But she no longer** _**believed** _ **in it. She believed in, and was scared of, hornets and spiders. Of being unloved and unmarried. Of getting fat. Of that big spot on her nose which wouldn't go away before school on Monday. Of failing her exams, and of her P.E. teacher's raised voice.**_

 ** _One childhood fear, however, remained, and understandably so - the fear of that uncle, and the gingerbread man of which he sung. It was forbidden to take the form of another, or else it would have moulded her into the uncle himself. The gingerbread man though, perhaps with the features of the uncle...now_** **that** **_was allowed.  
_**

 ** _Glamours could die halfway through the process. Sometimes...not often, but sometimes...the host stopped being scared of whatever form had been chosen. For once a form is decided upon and the process begins, it cannot change it's mind. And if the fear is gone, the mutation cannot complete, and the Glamour will die, and the host will live on. It knew it had to be very careful. It knew it had to choose the form carefully, set the scene, keep everyone around it's host as scared as she was, be as brash and cruel and crude as can be. And to really set the scene, why, what better time to make it's move than Halloween?_**

 ** _But now that woman! And her silly old man friend! Oh, she used to be an old man herself! What manner of creature was she, who could change her face and form at will? It hoped that maybe she was stupid. Her silly coloured clothes made it wonder if that was true, but with dismay it learned that she wasn't. She was clever! Worse still, she knew it! She knew what it was, and what it wanted._**

 ** _Well no. It would kill the girl if it had to. Yes, it would die in the process. But a Glamour's life isn't worth living unless it converts a host. It gets once chance, one try, and no more. So no. It will_ not _roll over and die if push comes to shove. It will grant this Doctor only a bittersweet_** ** _Pyrrhic victory; she may kill it, but she won't save the girl._**

* * *

 _The Glamour let go of it's own accord. Devendra staggered backwards and collapsed into Graham's arms, blood spurting from it's neck. Priti grinned, blood between her teeth, and smeared over her lips like lipstick._ _She got to her feet and cackled the grating male's cackle._

 _The Doctor scrambled for the sleeping-drug spray (it should_ never _have worn off that quickly), but the Glamour was too quick._

"Not this time." _It growled, lifting the Doctor up by her neck tossing her into the Tardis's circular-mesh wall.  
_

 _"No!" Graham exclaimed, dropping Devendra and making a feeble effort to restrain the girl. She floored him, and he collapsed in a heap beside her father._

 _The Glamour stood above them, and for that moment, it appeared to have free reign of the Tardis._

* * *

"But why take it there?" Clara asked incredulously. "Surely that was the last place you ought to have something like that?"

"Indeed." The Curator nodded vigorously. "The plan was actually very simple. Get her to the Tardis medical bay, and surgically remove the Glamour."

"You...I mean she...the Doctor could do that?"

The Curator nodded again. "Oh yes. The Doctor _was_ a doctor of medicine, among many other things. Yes, the gear on the Tardis would have enabled her to perform a very straightforward surgical removal of it. Using the z-knife."

"I'm not even gonna ask what that is." Clara remarked.

"Best not. She wasn't comfortable doing it. Not confident. But she would have, to save the girl."

"So why did she wake up so quickly?"

The Curator considered. "I suppose just...the Glamour was stronger than she anticipated. Either way, it doesn't matter. Because the plan was scuppered. She couldn't operate on her whilst she was awake, and worse still, the Glamour

* * *

 _Stamped on the canister of sleeping gas, breaking the bottle._

"Now who of you shall I kill first?" _It grunted._

 _"You want volunteers?" The Doctor moaned, staggering to her feet, clutching her head and back. Her eyes were unfocused, and Graham saw with dismay that she was concussed._

"Think I was asleep, did you?" _It exclaimed._ "'Ad you there a second, didn' I? 'Ow about that?"

 _Graham and Devendra lay on the floor in terror and dismay. The Doctor staggered towards the creature. "Knew the plan, of course?"_

"Remove me, then! Do it! I'll kill this girl! You see if I won't! You see if I don't!"

 _I'm not going to remove you." The Doctor said. "I thought I could. Your right. I thought you were asleep. So I give you a chance now...just go. Detach from her. If your scared of dying, I can help - you can stay here, and live out your natural lifespan at peace. But that's your only chance. My only offer. Otherwise, one of us is about to die now."_

 _The Glamour burst into fresh laughter._ "One of us? I got the strength o' ten, and soon enough the mutation will be complete! I'm the gingerbread man!" _It rounded on Devendra._ "You useless waste of space father! Letting your girl into the care of that brother o' your's! No wonder she chose me, and I chose her! She's known nothing but fear all through her life, and it's your fault! 'Appy 'Alloween!"

 _Devendra just whimpered, shaking his head, and clutching his bleeding neck._

 _"Your a parasite." The Doctor replied calmly, even sadly. "Nothing more."_

"And your a fool!" _The gingerbread man squealed, rushing at the Doctor._

 _Yet again, those cold, iron fingers closed around the Doctor's throat. And yet again, that was the worst place they could have been. For the Glamour._

 _"I warned you." The Doctor said quietly. "This is on you."_

 _And she pressed her own fingers to Priti's forehead, shutting her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Priti." She whispered._

* * *

"What did she do?" Clara gasped.

"It was the last resort." The Curator said. "Gallifreyans have psychic powers. You know that. Operating was off the cards. There was only one other way to save Priti."

"But what did she do?" Clara repeated.

The Curator sighed. "Something very dangerous. Something which changed Priti forever. The Glamour fed off fear. It needed the chemicals of Priti's fear to keep growing. We Time Lords are powerful, but not unlimited. We can't cherry pick what fears we remove. So she removed all of them. She removed all traces of the emotion from Priti Sharma. Forever."

* * *

 _A cry of pain - not a real one, one inside the heads of everyone in the console room. It was a helpless, terrified shriek.  
_

 _"I'm so sorry." The Doctor repeated. "To both of you."_

"No!" _Squealed the voice in their heads._

 _There was a flash of bright light from Priti's back. Graham watched in disgust as a solid lump of beige goo slid up from the neck of her pajamas and splatted on the floor. The Glamour. But it hadn't killed her! It was off! But it hadn't killed her._

 _It was injured; that much was obvious. The little claws around it's sides were scrabbling desparatley at the floor, trying to move without success. The gaping mouth in the middle was open, a rasp of pain coming out._

 _Priti collapsed into the Doctor's arms, out cold. "It's all right!" She told Graham and Devendra. "It's too badly hurt to harm us now. It won't survive for long. I severed the food-supply mid-change. Like unplugging a computer from the wall."_

 _"Is it dying, then?" Graham asked - just to be sure._

 _"Yeah." The Doctor said. "They_ cannot _lose the fear supply mid-change. It's having a heart attack. It's dying."_

 _Devendra stood up. "Any chance of survival?" He demanded._

 _The Doctor shrugged. "About one in a million."_

 _"Too much." Devendra spat. He charged towards the spectacle on the floor, and scooped it up into his hands._

 _"No, don't!" The Doctor exclaimed._

"Stop! Stop! Get off me! Get off! Let me go! I'll die anyway! Please! Let me go!"

 _"No!" Devendra screamed, digging his fingers into it's gooey flesh and pulling - great chunks of the creature came away, and he tossed them to the floor. In their heads, they heard screams of pain. The creatures little pincers were wiggling vigorously._

 _"Check_ this _out, you scum!" Devendra wailed, slamming it repeatdely against one of the support columns, tearing it's flesh away. "How about this one? Huh? Are you having fun yet! Are you loving the fear yet? Are you?"_

"Get off! Arrgh! No! No! Just let me go! Let me die in peace! That hurts! No! Please! Plea-"

 _All at once, the noise stopped, as Devendra, with one final grunt of effort, pulled the thing clearly in half. The little pincers stopped moving, and the man was showered in it's stinking bodily fluids. The mouth hung still, attached to one side of the creature's remains. Devendra was holding one side in each hand. He tossed them to the floor and spat on them._

 _"Cripes..." Graham muttered._

 _There was a high pitched gasp and cough. Graham and Devendra yelled in alarm, and wheeled around. In the Doctor's arms, Priti Sharma coughing violently - a high pitched girl's cough. She blinked several times, and looked around, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She looked up at the Doctor, who continued to cradle her._

 _"Hey." The Doctor said gently, smiling. Her eyes travelled around the room before settling on Devendra, who stood there in his suit, covered in slime._

 _"Daddy?" She whispered uncertainly in a well-spoken, gentle female voice._

 _"Priti..." he said, dropping to his knees, and crawling over to his daughter. "Oh, Priti..."_

 _The Doctor passed him his daughter, and the pair of them embraced. Graham whistled, and took a deep, shaky breath. He limped over to the Doctor, and put his arm around her._

 _"Well done, Doc." He whispered. She smiled sadly. Grinning himself, Graham looked down at Priti and her dad. As he did, she looked up, her eyes meeting his._

 _They were still the eyes of a gingerbread man, two big round black and white holes. They always would be._

* * *

"A life without fear..." Clara said slowly. "Is that such a bad thing?"

"Yes." The Curator said at once. "It's like an October...without a Halloween. It's not good, Clara. You must understand - she didn't just remove all of Priti's fears. This wasn't phobia treatment. She literally, permanently, removed any ability to feel fear from her brain. As she explained to the Sharma's, that

* * *

 _"was the last resort." The Doctor said quietly. "I'm sorry."_

 _Priti was asleep - she'd woken, and spoken a little to her father, before passing out again. That was normal, the Doctor said. She'd wake up within twelve hours, and feel right as rain. But she'd never be the same again._

 _The Sharma's were all home - Aashi and Priti's siblings too. They'd all said hello to the Doctor, and were now upstairs by Priti's bedside. The room smelled fresh, and was warm as toast._

 _"I had to remove fear...completely. It was absolutely the last resort."_

 _Aashi and Devendra nodded. Devendra had cleaned himself up, and was hugging his wife. "We're just happy to have her back." Aashi said, her voice choked._

 _"Of course," the Doctor agreed, "but please understand what I'm saying. Priti will...will never be scared of anything again. Anything. Try to comprehend what I'm saying to you. She won't be scared of dying. Or getting in any way harmed. She won't be scared of anybody, or any situation. She'll be useful to have around the house, when it comes to spider season of course. But...some people...that lack of fear could turn them into something...something bad. Evil, even."_

 _"Not her." Devendra said at once. "Never her. She's got a heart of gold."_

 _"I'm sure." The Doctor said. "But the responsibility is your's now - your going to have to, in effect, raise her from scratch. I know that aged fifteen, you generally aren't raising them any more, but you'll need to with her. You need to make sure she knows not to do anything dangerous - how to recognize danger even if she doesn't fear it. You'll have to teach her not to take risks. Keep her on the right path. If can you do all of that, she'll probably turn out fine. But without that guidance, she'll be a danger. To herself and others."_

 _The Doctor took a deep breath, and continued._

 _"Then we have the physical ramifications. That gingerbread on her back can be removed easily - go to UNIT, they'll sort that. It'll be hideously sore of course, but her real skin will grow back. They can even do a skin-graft if the surgeon thinks it's best. Her eyes, however..."_

 _"They can't be changed back?" Aashi said quietly._

 _The Doctor smiled sadly and shook her head. "I'm afraid not. She'll have those eyes forever now. Again, UNIT will help - some special contact lenses will make her eyes look normal. Though quite what will happen if or when she needs an eye test, I don't know."_

 _"Speaking of UNIT," Devendra said, "where are they? They said they would send people, but they never turned up."_

 _It was seven in the morning now. They'd been due at four. The Doctor just winked. "They know that it's been sorted."_

 _She stood up from the sofa, and Graham followed suit. "Been a pleasure." He said, shaking each of their hands._

 _"Likewise." Aashi said. She kissed the Doctor and Graham, and Devendra hugged the both of them._

 _"But you never said..." Aashi continued. "Who_ are _you?"_

 _The Doctor shook her head. "We were just passing by. We saw you needed help, so we helped. That's all there is to it. Look after that daughter. Tell her we said bye."_

 _"But you must wait to speak to her properly! She'll want to thank you!" Aashi exclaimed_

 _"No, we must be off. Got two young people of our own to pick up."_

 _"Thank you." Aashi said softly. Devendra nodded beside her. "Thank you for my daughter."_

 _The Doctor smiled, and quietly along with Graham, saw herself out of the Sharma household for the final time._

 _"_ Will _she be all right?" Graham asked as they walked down the freezing Liverpool street._

 _"I dunno." The Doctor said simply. "That's her choice, isn't it? If they look after her, make sure she knows to keep herself safe, then she ought to be. I just hope..."_

 _"Yeah?"_

 _"I hope that they're right - they say she's got a heart of gold. If that's really true, then I think she'll do fine. But you know what parents are like, right? Not the most unbiased people. If she...if she isn't quite as nice as that...we could, just potentially, have made her into something rather scary."_

 _"So listen...your sure we ought to jus' be leaving her?" Graham said uncertainly, looking back at the Sharma's house._

 _The Doctor nodded. "I'll keep tabs on her. Check up in a few years. Just in case."_

 _She looked up, and saw the Sharma's waving from Priti's bedroom window. They'd be sat right beside her as she slept, and the Doctor knew they'd still be there when she finally woke up._

* * *

"Well then," the Curator said grandly, "that's it. Enjoy yourself?"

"Guess so," Clara said happily, downing her wine. She glanced at her watch and realized for the first time the lateness of the hour. Time to go, she guessed. Let the old man sleep off his drink.

She had just one more question for the Curator.

"So did you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Did you ever check up on Priti?"

The Curator broke into a wide, toothy smile. "Oh, yes. But that's another story..."

* * *

 **Note: Thanks for reading! :)**

 **I'm itching to do a longer story, but really tied up with university coursework for the foreseeable. Still, hope you all enjoyed this, short though it was. Love to hear what some of you thought of it, so any reviews much appreciated.**


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